The most important and laudable occurrence of his reign was the reformation of the law of the land. Before his time different parts of the kingdom were governed by different laws: Wessex, by the West Saxon; Mercia, by the Mercian; and Northumberland, by the Danish laws. In his reign they were reduced into one body, by the name of the laws of Edward the confessor, which then became common to all England. This together with the abolition of that odious tax called _Danegelt_, seem to have been his best and most commendable deeds, though probably to be ascribed to his counsellors, such as Goodwin, Leofric, and Siward, rather than to himself. It is said, however, that he was humane, temperate, and charitable, and gave much alms: and, moreover, that he had visions and revelations, the gift of prophecy, and even that of working miracles, his extensive fame for which continued long, and procured him, about two hundred years after his death, from pope Alexander III. the high honour of canonization, under the name of _Saint Edward the Confessor_, an appellation that must have been very oddly and unaccountably applied. But of all his memorable achievements, or traits of character, his _touching_ for the Evil, or Scrofula, and pretending to the gift or power of miraculously healing that complaint, are the most remarkable. As this pretended gift or power is supposed to have originated with him, {288a} and to have descended from him to all his legitimate successors on the English throne, a sketch of the history of the practice, from first to last, it is presumed, would not prove unacceptable or unentertaining to the reader. And as the disorder, for whose cure this practice was introduced, is said to be nowhere more common, or prevalent, than at and about Lynn, {288b} which is supposed to have been also the case for many generations, it may naturally and safely be concluded that frequent applications to the throne for a cure would be made, time after time, from these parts, while every body believed that the sovereign’s _touch_ would infallibly remove the malady. Myriads and myriads, labouring under scrofulous complaints, have certainly applied to the throne for relief during the long interval between the time of the Confessor, when the said practice commenced, and the accession of George I. when it was finally laid aside. Even in the single reign of that _most religious_ prince (as he has been called) Charles II. the number, it is said, amounted to _above ninety thousand_; and it is morally certain that not a few of that multitude, and of the rest, who resorted, before and since, to our different sovereigns, for relief in the same case, were Norfolk and Lynn patients. The insertion therefore, in this volume, of the proposed Sketch of this notable affair, or practice of the royal touch, cannot, it is presumed, be deemed any material deviation from propriety:—so it shall appear in the last section of this chapter, at the conclusion of this